DISCUSSING BOOKS

Modernism and truth

Ante Babaja’s monograph is certainly to be welcomed, and we may only hope that other Croatian directors will also be so elaborately revaluated. However, with a large number of collaborators there is always a danger that instead of a coherent monograph we end up with a collection of essays. Ante Peterlić’s text is particularly interesting. He places Babaja in the context of Croatian, Yugoslav and European film within a historical frame starting with the decline of socialistic realism and ending with the dissolution of socialism and Yugoslav federation. Within the European context this historical period comprises the fading of neo-realism, flourishing of modernism, followed by post-modernism, and ends with the triumph of Hollywood poetics. Hrvoje Turković discusses Babaja’s paradoxal status — he was noted as an early representative of ’auteur film’, while at the same time he was treated as an ’outsider’. Turković claims that his view of film art is deeply imbedded in our ’higher culture’ branded by romanticism. Jurica Pavičić analyses the correlation of Babaja’s film work with that of the writer Slobodan Novak, while Silvestar Kolbas analyses pictorial style of Babaja’s films concluding that the cameraman (Tanhofer, Pinter, Trbuljak...) was Babaja’s most important collaborator. Irena Paulus’s essay about music in Ante Babaja’s films is a story about his relationship with his frequent associate Anđelko Klobučar. Essays by Ranko Marinković, Nenad Polimac, Mihovil Pansini and Slobodan Novak should not have been included in the monograph because they dissipate its thematic unity. Damir Radić’s and Vladimir Sever’s interview with Babaja, on the other hand, was an extremely useful. One director, eleven authors, an excellent, but somewhat lengthy monograph — is a short summary of this publication.

Ivan Žaknić